


Shaken, Not Stirred

by Angel_Bazethiel



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: M/M, Post-SPECTRE, SPECTRE Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2020-01-15 22:58:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18508801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Angel_Bazethiel/pseuds/Angel_Bazethiel
Summary: He waits for Q’s nimble fingers to finish the brew to his tastes. Then Q stirs the drink in his hands over and over again. Q has a slight hunch on his back, a slack on his movements, and bags under his eyes.He has this far-away look in his eyes as he stirs his tea. Looking, but not quite seeing. He stirs in different patterns: clockwise, counterclockwise, a figure eight, zigzag horizontally, then vertically, then repeat. Bond opens his mouth to voice out his concern, but Q beats him to it.“Ever heard of the Brouwer Fixed Point Theorem, 007?”“Sorry?”





	Shaken, Not Stirred

**Author's Note:**

> I am sorry in advance. Please bear with me. I hope you'll still like it though. Another procrastination fic so yeah. I had this idea since last semester when I was in a Mathematical Physics lecture and only got around to writing it now because I'm running away from life LOL. Also, this is dedicated to my professor then, who tried hard to make his students fall in love again with maths (even if he's not going to actually see this). He's an amazing professor, too bad I'm a shit student. I passed the class though.

It’s three in the morning and MI6 feels like a ghost town.

Well, most of MI6. Q-Branch is an exception. Q-Branch is buzzing at any time of the day. It’s always five o’clock somewhere around the world and there would always be an agent that needs their help. So Bond just strolls through the Branch at three in the morning as he usually does when reporting back to his Quartermaster.

Bond doesn’t see him at his station though, but rather in the kitchens, making a cup of tea.

He waits for Q’s nimble fingers to finish the brew to his tastes. Then Q stirs the drink in his hands over and over again. Q has a slight hunch on his back, a slack on his movements, and bags under his eyes.

He has this far-away look in his eyes as he stirs his tea. Looking, but not quite seeing. He stirs in different patterns: clockwise, counterclockwise, a figure eight, zigzag horizontally, then vertically, then repeat. Bond opens his mouth to voice out his concern, but Q beats him to it.

“Ever heard of the Brouwer Fixed Point Theorem, 007?”

“Sorry?”

Q just hums and continues, “It states that for every continuous function from an _n_ -ball Bn to itself must have a fixed point.”

Bond doesn’t know what to say to that so he says, “I couldn’t say I have heard about it, Quartermaster.”

“Of course,” Q scoffs and his stirring becomes more erratic. “It goes like this: for a topological space, _S,_ with elements _x_ and a continuous function that maps from _S_ to _S,_ there would always be an _x_ that stays as it is.”

When Bond keeps quiet, Q sighs, “Take the surface of this tea as an example of the topology _S_ and each point at its surface is an element _x_. A continuous function such as _stirring_ is applied to the surface. No matter how the stirring is done,” Q stops his stirring, “as the surface settles again there would _always_ be at least one point that goes back to where it once was. There would always be a point that stays the same.”

Q stays silent as he watches the swirling tea on his hands, still with the distant look in his eyes. When it stills, Q restarts his stirring.

“I think I understand,” Bond tries to say, “Q, may ask how long ago since you last slept?”

But Q ignores him, “And I pity that single point. Everything changes around it as it stays the same. And it doesn't have a choice, does it? There should always be a point that stays and it’s the unfortunate point that does. Then it suffers all the changes made. It’s the one that stays that suffers. It’s the one that is left behind that suffers.”

“Q…” Bond starts to say but Q waves him off.

“Oh, don’t mind what I’m saying, 007. It has been eighty-two hours since I last slept properly. Nonsense tends to come out of my mouth by then.”

“You should go home, Q.”

“Perhaps I should.”

 

Q goes home and stays away from his branch for a couple of days. He comes back after three days, refreshed and more like himself.

Medical clears Bond for duty and was sent out to Bolivia the day after.

A man from the RAF is appointed as the new 008.

 

 

\--

 

 

James Bond, Q thinks, is the fixed point of MI6.

The man is the only constant throughout the seven years of his employment. Whatever situation was thrown at him, the man stubbornly persists. Well, there was one time that Q thought that Bond was finally done with MI6, but even then he came back.

 

**Function 1: Casino Royale**

Le Chiffre dies.  
Mathis is accused of treason.  
Bond falls in love.  
Vesper betrays them.  
Vesper dies.  
  
Bond loses his love.  
_Bond stays._

Quantum is found. Mr White is found.

 

**Function 2: Quantum**

Mathis is pardoned.  
Mathis dies.  
Bond gets suspended.  
Greene’s organization is unravelled.  
Quantum dies with it.  
  
Bond is reinstated.  
_Bond stays._  
  
Yusef Kabira dies. Vesper is avenged.

 

**Function 3: Istanbul**

The solid state drive containing the identities of NATO agents is stolen.  
Agent Ronson dies.  
Bond dies.  
Agent Moneypenny gets grounded.  
Eight agents die right where everyone thought is the safest place they could be.  
  
Bond comes back from the dead.  
_Bond comes back to MI6._  
  
The former Q was one of the eight. R becomes Q.

 

**Function 4: Raoul Silva**

Silva gets captured.  
M reveals some of her past with Tiago Rodriguez.  
Bond’s faith in M should waver even just a bit.  
Q’s faith in himself wavers as Silva escapes.  
M dies.  
  
Bond’s faith in the new M has some room to grow.  
So _Bond stays._  
  
MI6 designates a new M. Eve and Q stays.

 

 

\--

 

 

Then SPECTRE happened.

Q thinks that after all this, Bond will stay. Three days after they apprehended Blofeld, Bond stops by Q’s workshop and he thinks, _hopes,_ Bond will stay. But Bond, as unpredictable as ever, leaves.

 _Bond fucking leaves_.

 

MI6 takes SPECTRE down, every last bit within its ghostly grasps. A new agent takes the 007 moniker. MI6 goes on without a hitch as an intelligence agency should.

 

A year passes. Eve gets married. Q-Branch minions invent an undetected and safe way of imaging through walls. R is having her second child. They lost a few double-Os and new ones come. Bill is offered the head position of MI5 and he accepted.

Everything around him changes, but Q stays.

Q keeps hoping. Q keeps waiting.

_Q keeps loving him._

And he hates it. Terribly.

But there should be at least one that stays. And if Bond wouldn’t be it, another should.

Bond deserves his driving-into-the-sunset happy ending. So Q becomes the fixed point.

 

 

\--

 

 

Q revisits the idea of the BFPT applied to MI6 and its enemies when he’s getting pissed in a quiet bar.

“Vodka martini. Shaken, not stirred.” A familiar voice says as the owner lets himself sit beside Q, who frowns at having his quiet night interrupted.

“Did you miss me, Q?”

Q decides to ignore the man and thinks on the words ‘shaken, not stirred.’ It brings him back to the example he gave Bond over a year ago. Stirring tea. It reminds him about the conditions that should be met before saying that BFPT could be applied on a certain set. The theorem only holds for a compact and convex, or homeomorphic to convex, set. Something that he didn't take into account before.

If shaking is defined as a dynamic series of non-convex inertial states in a vacant space under a lid, then shaking a liquid doesn’t satisfy the convexity condition.

Q then thinks the set composed not of MI6 and its enemies, but of Q and the infuriating man beside him. They’re unbound and open, the nature of their job doesn’t allow them to be otherwise. They’re arguably non-convex.

BFPT shouldn’t apply to the set of both of them, but here they are. Is this a choice, then? Why would Q choose such a stupid one?

“Q?” Why would Bond choose to come back?

He sighs and downs his drink, “You’re late. They already gave someone your position.”

“I didn’t come back for MI6. For the most part at least.”

“Why _did_ you come back?” Q finally looks at Bond. He sees blue and weariness, white gold and waning.

Bond gives him a deprecating smile, “Maybe because I’m stirred back to this life.”

“But I thought we’re shaken and not stirred?”

“What?” Bond cocks an eyebrow and the tips of his mouth twitches.

“Sorry,” Q pinches the bridge of his nose and groans, “I’m just spouting nonsense again. Don’t mind the drunk.”

“Most of the things that come from you isn’t nonsense, Q. I actually think you have unlocked the secrets of the universe with your nonsense.”

“Right,” Q snorts, “While the generalized version of the Brouwer theorem proves the existence of the Nash equilibria and what other, I don’t think it can be used for the secret of the universe.”

“Nash equilibria?”

“Yeah,” Q shrugs, “You know, when Alice and Bob reach the best decision they can while taking into account the decision of the other while the other’s decision remains unchanged then Alice and Bob are in Nash equilibrium.”

“Alice and Bob?” Bond is grinning now, amused.

“It doesn’t matter,” Q raises his hands up, “The point is –- wait, what was it? I had a point. God damn my tangents.”

“Shaken, not stirred?” Bond suggests helpfully.

“Yes! The theorem only holds for certain conditions and functions. Having said that, I don’t think it applies to us.”

Bond’s grin shrinks into a small smile as he looks at Q with a perplexing expression that could only be called fond, “Because we’re shaken and not stirred?”

“Exactly! I have a very nice metaphor in my head, I’ll tell you in the morning when my brain and mouth start to collaborate again. Assuming that you’re staying, that is. Will you stay?”

“Of course, Q.”

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> So how was it? If you're a Math major and I butchered BFPT, then please don't kill me. Note again that I took the class last semester (which is actually not an extensive topology class, just an intro) and I currently don't have my notes with me so I'm relying on my reference books and Wikipedia LOL. I actually had a different idea in mind then, but I learned that AO3 doesn't support LaTeX *sigh*. ~~so disappointed, shame on you AO3.~~
> 
> Also, yes. The tangents and blabber. Have you ever talked to nerds? Are my nerd friends the only ones that are scatterbrained and usually go off tangents and spout nonsense?


End file.
